Berlin Wall long gone but barriers still remain

The Berlin Wall fell twenty years ago. The event marked the beginning of the end of the Cold War, a triumph of people power that became a festival of freedom. Within a year the East German communist regime was gone, as was the iron curtain which divided Europe since the end of World War II. The decades of separation saw thousands of East Germans attempting defection to the West. Some Germans believe economic and social barriers still remain between East and West and true national unification.

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KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago was one of the great landmark moments of modern democratic history, marking the beginning of the end of the Cold War, a triumph of people power that became a festival of freedom.

Within a year, East Germany's communist regime was gone too, and the Iron Curtain, which had divided Europe since the end of the Second World War had crumbled. In the decades following its construction, in 1961 thousands of East Germans attempted to defect across the wall and as many as 200 were killed.

The wall may be now be long gone, but some Germans believe economic barriers remain between East and West. Scott Bevan reports from Berlin.

HERMANN WENTKER, INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY HISTORY, BERLIN: These events changed the whole geographic and political structure of Europe.

This point you could imagine this is as the end of the communist regime here.

SCOTT BEVAN, REPORTER: In Alexanderplatz, a focal point of what used to be East Berlin, Peter Grimm is looking at an exhibition about the fall of the Berlin Wall and events leading up to it. Only, he's doing more than viewing history; he's remembering being part of it.

PETER GRIMM, FMR EAST GERMAN OPPOSITION ACTIVIST: I am here. It is in end of June in 1986.

SCOTT BEVAN: Does it seem that long ago?

PETER GRIMM: Ah, yes and no. This long, long time ago. But something it is of course you remember it like it was yesterday.

SCOTT BEVAN: Peter Grimm was a young opposition activist who hated the wall and what it represented.

PETER GRIMM: The wall, but not only the wall, symbolised a regime. It was unfree.

SCOTT BEVAN: The wall was built in 1961 by the communist East German Government as a way of keeping its people from leaving for the West. About three million East Germans had left since the country was divided at the end of the Second World War. The Berlin Wall came to symbolise the Cold War itself, the divisions between East and West.

And for almost three decades, it continued to be a rampart from which political leaders could challenge each other's system.

SCOTT BEVAN: In 1989, the wall's foundations were being undermined by a massive flow of East Germans who had found a way around it by taking advantage of the relaxing of border restrictions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia to head to the West. Few believed the East German leadership would respond by opening the wall.

CLAUDIA WEISKE, ACTOR (voiceover translation): For me it was unbelievable. Even just six months earlier I never thought that this could happen, that this border would open.

SCOTT BEVAN: On November 9th, 1989, the unbelievable did happen. An announcement easing travel restrictions for East Germans was made by the authorities. Tens of thousands responded by besieging the wall, demanding they be let through. The checkpoints were open, the wall was doomed.

KIM EUSTCE, BERLIN RESIDENT: The moment for me, I think, was when the announcement came on the television, when the guy said on the news that East Germans were allowed to travel now. And, you know, it took a minute, first of all, for us to realise what that meant. And then we thought, "Well, hold on, well you don't need this wall anymore." And it was just this amazing feeling, like, as if all that tension, everything just dropped away in that moment.

SCOTT BEVAN: Kim Eustice is an Australian performer who's been living in Berlin since 1985. For her, the wall couldn't come down soon enough

KIM EUSTIVE: Just had this continual presence of something that was so perverse and really bizarre to think that, you know, just over the road were people living in a completely different country, Berliners living in a completely different country, and whose lives were, you know, much more restricted than ours, and who just didn't have a lot of basic freedoms that we took for granted.

PETER DAUBE, FMR WEST BERLIN POLICE OFFICER: They are not allowed, the Berliners, to go on the other side.

SCOTT BEVAN: So the West Berliners could not go here?

PETER DAUBE: No, no.

SCOTT BEVAN: Peter Daube was a West Berlin police officer on duty during those extraordinary days.

PETER DAUBE (voiceover translation): There was this euphoria, with people from East Germany being welcomed with open arms, which was very exciting. But we couldn't imagine that the GDR would suddenly disappear.

SCOTT BEVAN: In less than a year, the German Democratic Republic had disappeared; Germany was reunified. Yet before then, as the wall was opening, the ripples were spreading even further.

Vladimir Kulagin was a high-ranking official in the Foreign Ministry in the Soviet Union, and he remembers thinking that the fall of the wall meant the end of the Warsaw Pact.

VLADIMIR KULAGIN, MOSCOW STATE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: Feelings were that it was inevitable somehow. You could not stop it. It was faster than we imagined.

SCOTT BEVAN: For some, the pace of change brought hope.

Rosemary Schindler was one of the first artists in 1990 to redefine the wall, turning it into a canvas for creativity. Now, one of the few remaining sections of the wall that once stretched for more than 150 kilometres has become one long outdoor art gallery.

Yet others remember a time of great turmoil, even anger. Actress Claudia Weiske was finishing school when the wall came down and she recalls her disgust at watching fellow East Germans crossing to the West and embracing consumerism.

CLAUDIA WEISKE (voiceover translation): I was so angry. I stood on the street and thought, "There is so much more to this. We have to be happy that it is open. We can once again be with the people we love, like family. It is all lovely." But the first thing people did was just storm the shops.

SCOTT BEVAN: Some former East Germans talk of being nostalgic for their life in the GDR. Others feel let down by what reunification has brought.

According to a recent survey by a welfare organisation called Volk Solidaritaire, 77 per cent of the respondents from the former East Germany said they believe their living standards were lower than those of their former West German neighbours, and the majority noted that they didn't feel as if they'd been fully integrated into the reunited Germany. So in the minds of many, the fall of the wall may have removed some barriers, but its highlighted, even created, others.

HERMANN WENTKER: These persons, I don't think they really want the GDR back as it was with the wall, with repression, with scarcity of goods. They - they have a very selective view of the GDR.

SCOTT BEVAN: Retired opera singer Ingrid Thalheim remembers all too well the repressions imposed by the East German regime. She only has to look at her file kept by the secret police to remind her. But she says at least that system offered employment security, something she worries about for her grandson amid the economic uncertainties of the new Germany.

INGRID THALHEIM, FMR EAST BERLIN RESIDENT E (voiceover translation): I certainly have worries what future he will have with training for a job and how much money he will earn.

SCOTT BEVAN: Still, as Berlin prepares to commemorate 20 years since the wall came down, thoughts today are not so much on the future, but how much the city has changed since 1989, and about how much the world has changed.

VLADIMIR KULAGIN: The collapse of the Berlin Wall I believe is the number one event in the 20th Century.

SCOTT BEVAN: Why is that?

VLADIMIR KULAGIN: Because the communist experiment, which Russians decided to take on themselves, you know, failed.

SCOTT BEVAN: And Berliners will be thinking about how their lives changed after 9th November, 1989.

PETER GRIMM: There's a feeling, yes, we are successful, we have done the right things.

PETER DAUBE: I think that most of all are so happy that we are now together and we one people.